


Interludes

by Stephquiem



Series: Going Back [3]
Category: Animorphs (TV), Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Genre: Alternate Universe, Enemies to Uneasy Allies to Friends?, Excessive Swearing, Gen, Occasionally Extremely Meta, Sario Rips, Self-Insert, Time Travel Theory, a family can be a teenager a parasite and a robot, drabbles and one shots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-10-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 00:03:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15279150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stephquiem/pseuds/Stephquiem
Summary: A series of one-shots and drabbles taking place in the Going Back universe.Takes place between #11 The Forgotten and #18 The Decision





	1. Set-Up

**_Steph_ **

I want to tell you that, once we made our sort of uneasy, if temporary, peace, I found out Priton wasn't so bad. That'd be the nice way for this story to go, wouldn't it? I don't know if that's exactly true though. It's a long way from "willing to share your cause" to "actual good guy." Like trusting your life to a mercenary. Sure, they might be useful in the short run, but you also can't be sure that they won't betray you if they're given a better offer by someone else. 

 Still. You can get used to anything.

It's weird sharing a brain with another person. Sometimes, everything's very distinct--there's a clear delineation between host and Yeerk. There's a clear marker between yours and theirs. This is _my_ anger. That's _his_ frustration. Shared feelings are amplified. But then, sometimes, the lines blurred. We started testing out splitting control. First when it was just the two of us, or when we'd take a break from academics in the library and I'd wander the stacks, looking for something fun to read. Sometimes, though, I'd forget. Sometimes we'd bleed into each other so much that it didn't always feel like I was moving, or like he was moving, but that _we_  were moving, like we were one being instead of two.

And then I would realize that was what was happening and it would scare me, and then the moment would be lost and I was very, uncomfortably aware of everything again.

I could kind of understand other voluntaries, you know? It's hard to live in such tight quarters with someone and not feel...  _something._ I'm not sure what the word for it was. Kinship, maybe, though that didn't feel right. Understanding. Empathy.

Priton, for his part, would point out that plenty of Yeerk-host relationships seemed to imply that proximity did not, in fact, make the heart grow fonder, or foster any understanding. No one would surely accuse Visser Three of being empathetic, for example, least of all Alloran.

<Fine, what would you call it?>

He'd shrugged. <Classic case of Stockholm Syndrome, clearly.>

I was mostly sure that he was kidding. Or maybe he wasn't. "Voluntary" was its own kind of illusion, after all. It suggested a choice that wasn't real. It wasn't like I could stop Priton from re-entering my head every three days. It wasn't like so-called voluntary Controllers wouldn't be forced into infestation no matter what, anyway. Priton told me that he'd seen it happen all the time. Lots of people agreed without knowing that they were agreeing to, lots of people tried to fight back once they knew the truth. And plenty of the ones who didn't fight back "chose" not to because their actual lives seemed like the worse option.

That's not a choice. Not really. Your only real choice is how you deal with your new reality.

Like I said. You can get used to anything.

* * *

 

Here's what I remember.

I remember standing outside the old motel with the others. I remember Jake's crash landing and Cassie rushing to help him even as he demorphed. I remember watching Jake check his watch and I remember thinking it was odd that a wristwatch could be morphed when so many other things couldn't.

I remember Rachel asking "Are we doing this or what?" and then, to my surprise, Jake changed his mind, and said we were leaving.

It wasn't often that I felt like I was on the same playing field as the others. I wasn't sure I liked it.

We morphed and separated, the others understandably confused by Jake's about-face. I was glad he didn't say anything to me specifically--I don't know what I would have told him. Or what Priton would have told him, for that matter.

Priton and I didn't say anything as we started home. We flew close--but not _too_ close--behind Cassie back to the barn. Cassie didn't say much, either. Maybe she was sifting through her own thoughts. Maybe she could tell that we weren't in the mood suddenly.

When we were about halfway home, Priton finally said to me, <Okay. Come on. You've got something to get off your chest. Let it out.>

<I don't understand.>

<Maybe it didn't happen,> he offered.

<It had to have happened,> I insisted, though of course, I wasn't actually sure. <There's no reason for it to not have happened.>

<Except the reasons it shouldn't have happened in the first place.> Right. Except for those. Priton sighed. <Maybe that's just how this works. We don't get to remember the stuff that's just for one person. This was Jake's shit show, he gets all the fun memories of playing Tarzan.>

<That's not--Never mind. You know, though, that the memory thing doesn't make sense half the time.>

By now we were flying over Cassie's farm. Priton called out a goodnight to Cassie before dipping toward the barn's open hayloft window. <I don't know about that.>

<I mean. The time travel specific memory stuff. It's not like everyone forgets the later times. Even with Sario Rips.> We landed inside the barn and began demorphing. <This isn't like someone playing with timelines, or whatever happened in that future New York thing-->

<'Twas but a dream.>

<Uh-huh. Or something. But this isn't like that. If Jake remembers, why don't we?>

Priton shrugged my now human shoulders. <Who knows. But we're not totally in the dark. We know what happened.>

<It's not the same. We don't know what we did.> When Priton shrugged again, I demanded, <How does this not bother you?>

My eyes closed and I felt Priton pinch the bridge of my nose. <Look. I get it. But I'm not sure any of it actually matters. Time reset. We didn't really do anything when you get down to it. Nothing that counted.>

I thought about that for a moment. <So, what. We're not responsible for actions we took so long as there's a reset button at some point?>

<Basically.>

<That sounds like a really bad idea, Priton.>

<Maybe,> he conceded. <You think your way and I'll think mine. Let's see who drives themselves crazy first.>

Later, when I was trying to fall asleep, Priton said, <Hey, I've got an idea.>

<About what?>

<About why Jake gets to remember shit we don't.> I felt my lips twitch up into a wry smile. <Maybe it's 'cause he's the narrator.>

<Because he's the--are you fucking serious.>

<Granted,> Priton continued, as though I hadn't spoken, <that causes all kinds of other problems. Not just logistical, but existential, too. What even is reality?>

I groaned. <Can't you just say that you don't know the reason instead of being an ass?>

<Probably. Good night, Steph.>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Priton is an asshole and I'm sorry. It's unbelievably hard not to get meta in a story like this, though.
> 
> I think most of the first three parts of Going Back can be classified as "Set-Up." You might be thinking that's a lot of time for exposition. You might be right, idak.
> 
> Can you use the term "slow burn" to refer to any plot, or is it just romance? Because this series is, at the latest estimate, 18 parts long. Give or take a part or two. What I'm trying to say is... buckle in.


	2. Ghosts

_**Steph** _

<Jonathan Taylor Thomas.>

<Nope.>

< _Home Improvement. >_ 

<Sounds like a DIY show.>

<Tim Allen?>

<Yes!>

<The guy from _Home Improvement? > _

<Nope.>

Priton chuckled as I groaned, dropping my head down onto the open book in front of us. We would be at it all day if I tried going through every pop culture reference I could think of to see what crossed over and what didn't. There was no real point to it, obviously, but it was just  _weird._ Weird to be somewhere that was so superficially similar--minus the invading aliens, though I guess if Yeerk-like aliens had been infiltrating some random town in California in my own universe, I wouldn't have known about it--and have so many little differences in places you wouldn't really expect.

<I think you're overthinking it,> Priton said. <They're different universes. Some things are just going to be different.>

<I guess. I didn't think it was weird  _before,_ I just assumed names got changed for whatever reason. Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Jeremy Jason McCole, Joe Bob Fenestre and Bill-->

<Fenestre isn't Bill Gates.> Priton sounded a little exasperated. <Bill Gates is an actual person here. You know that.>

<Oh. Right. To be fair, a lot of people make that mistake.>

<I'll take your word for it. No, he's more like... Who started whatever your version of Web Access America is?>

<It's America Online and I have no idea.>

<Huh.> He didn't say anything more for a moment, long enough for me to assume the conversation was over. As I sat up again and went back to my book, though, he asked, <Is America Online only in the U.S.?>

<I don't think so?>

<Okay, now you're just making things up.>

* * *

 

Sometimes, the library felt like a sanctuary. Like the war didn't exist as long as I was within its walls. Which was dumb, obviously. I had Priton with me always, had been infested just outside, and really, safety was always an illusion. Still, it made an odd sort of sense. Here, there could be long stretches of time where there was nothing to do except read and think, and I'm sure that if the moments when we weren't there weren't so fraught with anxiety and danger, it would have been incredibly boring. 

Really, though, my favorite thing about the library was that it was the place I had the most freedom. I think anything except full-time control would have been considered stingy. It was _my_ body, after all, no matter what Priton had to say about it. He was just a temporary tennant, and a demanding one at that.

<No history,> Priton had said when we started our little arrangement. 

<No history?> I'd repeated, incredulous. <You realize that basically just leaves science and math right? Some "school" this is.>

<It's not just math and science. You'll probably get more, grammar and vocab-wise out of reading whatever you want than if I force fed you a book on it. And you can study whatever else you want, not just what they'd teach you in school.>

<But not history.>

<Right.>

<But I actually  _like_ history.>

<Then read it all you want when I'm gone. If I wanted to read about humans being shitty to each other, I'd just read news sites.>

I guess it was a good thing that Priton wouldn't be around for Time Matrix shenanigans.

We had a surprising amount of downtime, all things considered. Punctuated now and again with flurries of activity--most expected, some not--and then days of nothing. The nothing might have been more relaxing if it didn't usually end abruptly, or if we didn't have to go back to the barn at the end of every day. 

In the beginning, before Priton, I'd thought that maybe eventually I could find a place with the Chee. It would have been infinitely more comfortable, for one thing, but more practically, it would have been a lot safer than hanging around in Cassie's hayloft, where I could easily be caught by her parents if I wasn't _incredibly_ careful. 

But Priton, for his own bizarre reasoning, had no interest in finding help from the Chee. I wasn't sure what his problem was--he was never especially forthcoming about anything. All I could figure was that it wasn't really about the  _Chee_ specifically, just one in particular. Which didn't make any sense to me either. If we knew the exact same things, and I didn't have a problem, why on Earth should he? 

To be fair, I guess, my continued existence didn't rely entirely on one person's decision on whether or not to rat me out. One person, who also carried around an imprisoned member of my species.

Okay. Maybe I kind of got it.

It didn't help, then, I guess, that we managed to run into Erek semi-frequently. Well, semi-frequently compared to what we expected, anyway. I wondered if it would ever stop being weird to run into people I knew but didn't  _know_ yet. I might have seen more of Erek if Priton had a regular feeding schedule. Instead, we maneuvered around missions and Tobias' patrols for pool entrances. Sometimes, we'd accompany him, which I thought was the most pointless idea.

<We know where they are,> I pointed out. <And we can't tell him, so what's the point?>

<If I know what he knows, then I know what entrances are still safe because he _doesn't_ know.>

 At some point, I think, it became a necessity to figure out a way to mark time. Or at least,  _time left._ I had only the vaguest estimate of how long things should take--like, we kept saying it was "a year" until we got the blue box, even though who knew if that was even true--based on guesswork I'd done before I had any practical application for it.

So, on a day between Rachel's appearance on alternate universe Regis and Kelly--<Who?>\--and Jara Hamee's escape, we were in the library again. We'd abandoned math because balancing equations was giving me a headache, and science had been a flop because Priton said cell division made him uneasy--I couldn't tell if he was being genuine or if he was just bored with primitive human science--and so were instead wandering the stacks in search of something else to pass the time. You could tell that school was starting to let out, because we were no longer the only teenager wandering around. It was mostly high school students, since the high school was just up the street, but the middles schools must have let out, too, because, as we emerged from the stacks on our latest pass-through of the mystery section, we saw Erek contemplating a display of new releases.

<Oh, Christ.> For a second, I could almost hear Priton debating whether or not to seize back control just to turn around and head back the way we'd come. <Can we not?>

<Be nice.>

<I  _am_ being nice. This is me when I'm nice.>

Honestly, that was kind of scary to think about.

<He's not that bad.>

<Hmm.> I started moving again, but before I'd taken more than a step, Priton said, <Hey, remember that time he's going to keep quiet about how the Howlers are basically toddlers who don't know any better, just for revenge?>

I faltered. Yes. Okay. That was a thing. <I--> I started to say something, then stopped, not even sure what I was going to reply with. What could I even say?

As it happened, it didn't really matter what I could have said--as if anything could justify or make it better--because at that moment Erek looked up from the display he was perusing to notice us. So I did the only thing I could think to do--I smiled and continued toward him, calling out, "Hello, Erek!"

"Uh, hi?" Erek looked bewildered as I sidled up next to him. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Are you kidding? I practically live here." I peered at the books he'd been looking at, though I realized pretty quickly that I had no idea what would even interest a millennia-old robot, so instead I turned back to Erek. "Why are _you_ here? I thought you were like, a walking Library of Alexandria or something."

Erek looked bemused. "Group project. I'm a little early." He was looking at me oddly, though I couldn't fathom why just then. "Was that a crack about robots?"

"Huh?"

"Library of Alexandria."

"Oh. No. You said something about having some insane number of books memorized or whatever." At Erek's blank expression, I clarified, "Or you will, I guess." It occurred to me, briefly, that I should probably make a note of this--that I could reference future events  _sometimes._ Maybe when it was something the person already knew, anyway. Maybe when it was super vague. Maybe expecting things to make sense was too much to ask.

"Ah. Right, you know things because you 'read' them," Erek said incredulously. "Seems like a weird thing for me to record for posterity, honestly."

"Well, I mean, _you_ didn't." I waved a hand dismissively. I leaned one hip against the display before crossing my arms over my chest. 

"So someone else did? Somehow that doesn't give me great confidence to know my life story's in some other person's hands." 

He was being sarcastic, clearly, but still, I shrugged and said, perfectly seriously, "Well, to be fair, a lot of it was ghost-written--Oh!" I shot up suddenly, like a fire had just been lit under me. Like a lightbulb had just gone off. "Of course! Oh my God, I'm an idiot!"

"What--"

I didn't hear the rest of Erek's question because I was now marching off toward the library's Young Adult section. It wouldn't change anything if I found what I was looking for, of course, but now that the idea was in my head I  _needed_ to know.

Erek trailed after me, looking increasingly bewildered as I reached the book carousels that made up the bulk of the library's collection. As I crouched to peer at the bottom of one, he asked, "Are you having a manic episode or something?"

I spared him a brief glance before returning to my search. "No, why?"

"Every other time I've talked to you, you've been openly beligerent."

"What?" I didn't pause, though my brow furrowed. "We've talked one time. Unless puking on you counts--sorry about that." I stood up. "Know where the P's are?"

"Next carousel." Erek followed as I strode to the next set of books. "Are you saying..."

"I told you, we came to an agreement of sorts." I half-smiled without looking up. "If you prefer rude, I promise we'll probably be back to regularly scheduled programming... probably next time we see you." Priton might have been inclined to behave himself in front of the others, but honestly, who could tell?

Before Erek could think of what to say to that, I guess, I finally found what I was looking for. "Aha!" I pulled the book out and held it up triumphantly. "There!"

"Uh... Sweet Valley Twins?"

"Oh, for--No, hold on." I flipped open the book, eagerly turning the pages until I found what I was looking for. "These are mostly ghost written. It should say somewhere--" I stopped. Who the hell was 'Kate William'? "You know what, never mind." I slid the book back where it came from. Was it possible to be disappointed and unsurprised at the same time? 

"I really have no idea what you're going on about."

"I know." I glanced back at Erek. "Don't you have a project you're supposed to be working on?" 

"Yeah." He looked over his shoulder, back towards the entrance. "My group's probably here by now." 

I nodded. As he turned to go, I said, almost on a whim, "I mean, if you want to hear it, I can give you the proper explanation when you're done." I smiled, a little lopsidedly. "I mean, you're probably in for a lot of confusion otherwise."

Erek seemed to pause, then shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

* * *

 

The sun was setting when we left the library. Priton was back in charge again, which seemed to make him happy, at least. For once, I was willing to give him a break on that. For tonight, anyway. 

The nearest bus stop wasn't very far, and we reached it well ahead of when the next bus was supposed to arrive, so Priton leaned against the stop's sign to wait. 

<Priton?> 

<What?>

<I can't punish someone for things they haven't done yet. It isn't fair.> When he didn't respond, I said, <And anyway, who knows? Things could change, we don't know.>

Priton raised my eyebrows. <Do you actually think that Erek's magically going to not want revenge? Really?>

No. I didn't. Though part of me couldn't blame him completely. What would I do in the same situation? I didn't want to ponder that very long. <Still. It wouldn't be right.>

Priton didn't say anything for a long time. Several minutes passed, until we could see the bus approaching in the distance. Finally, Priton said, <Kate William isn't an actual person.>

<What?>

<It's just a catch-all pseudonym that's used for any ghostwriter working on that series. Applegate might have been cool with listing people by their actual names, but I guess Francine Pascal, or her publishers or whoever, are less so for whatever reason.> He shrugged. <Doesn't necessarily mean anything, of course.>

<No. Right.> Still. It was something. I wasn't sure _what,_ exactly. If I'd expected this to make things feel better, or for my life to make more sense, there was no real moment of sudden clarity or anything.  Somehow it wasn't any less lonely knowing there was somebody called Francine Pascal--or Tim Allen--here, too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I visited my cousins in Canada for the first time, I remember being surprised to discover that they had AOL. In fairness to myself, something with "America" in the name sounded like it would be an American-specific thing. Also one of my Canadian cousins always used a yahoo account. Let's just blame him for this.
> 
> Also, say what you want about Priton, he's very good at bringing people together. Albeit through mutual dislike of him.
> 
> Fun fact of the Day: Francine Pascal is 80 years old. What the heck. I don't know why this was so surprising to me.


	3. Fairness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I attempted to fill up this space-between-the-important bits, and struggling through some parts of it--world-building is fun. The Priton/GB!Steph/Erek dynamic is my favorite thing. Everything else is hard--I remembered: Oh, right. I specified that some of these would be drabbles. Albeit in the loose "up to 1000 words" sense of "drabble."

_**Priton** _

Life is rarely fair. If it was fair, involuntary hosts wouldn't exist. The Empire wouldn't have found the Hork-Bajir home world, but found a species more like the Taxxons--somebody who could benefit from our presence instead of being enslaved and nearly wiped out. Poor, naive Seerow would've gotten stationed on some planet with a kinder species, and Home World could've had some other, arrogant asshole Andalite prince to take advantage of, one it was harder to feel sorry for. Planets wouldn't get destroyed because of misunderstandings, species wouldn't get massacred because of pseudo-divine dick measuring contests. Candy would be good for you and spinach would rot your teeth.

Steph had always thought that the Ellimist gave Tobias what he wanted when he gave him back the morphing power, rather than make him human like he expected. I didn't disagree, but it kind of makes you wonder, you know? Did the Ellimist believe in restitution? "Sorry I fucked up your home life by taking your father away and more or less directly causing you to grow up in an abusive situation, and then getting you drafted into your father's war. At least now your dates with your doomed human girlfriend will be less awkward."

I was pretty sure morphs didn't age--our insect morphs would be dead otherwise--so that would've gotten awkward after a while anyway. Still. You wonder sometimes if it's far off calling the Ellimist a meddling trickster.

 The Ellimist brought Steph here to change the outcome of things, though he never specified how, or even  _what_ specifically. From a certain perspective, you could argue that anything was "wrong." Maybe humanity wasn't supposed to win. Maybe someone else was supposed to die instead.  _Maybe, maybe, maybe._ Who the fuck knows what the Ellimist even wants. 

It's incredibly eerie to listen to humans and Hork-Baijr chanting "free or dead." There was the obvious reason, but also there was the uncomfortable knowledge of what "free" was going to look like. That unless something changed, most of them would be dead soon enough anyway. Suicide missions, doomed rescues, whatever the fuck The One was. And then there was Jara Hamee, the Hork-Bajir Moses, right down to dying before his people entered the "promised land"--or I guess, Yellowstone. Not that Hork-Bajir live that long to begin with, at least not compared to humans, or even Yeerks. Even less so when they were on the front line of a war, whether they were enslaved soldiers or freedom fighters. Having a noble cause wasn't going to save any of us.

I know what you're wondering, and of course I said it with them. The thing is though, the idea of "freedom" is kind of tricky for a Yeerk. What's it even supposed to look like? Life in the pool without needing to worry about anything on the outside? Enslaving another sentient creature? Something symbiotic, like our probable-cousins, the Iskoort? For me, I hoped it would look like escape into another form entirely, but what does that mean on a grand scale? Total cultural genocide? _Actual_ genocide? WIll anyone care about our side of the story when it comes down to it? Stupid question. I already knew the answer to that one. It's the vissers who get to represent all Yeerk-kind, even in fiction.

Sometimes, I think the whole concept of "fairness" loses its meaning when nothing's fair for anyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky Priton, having all his host experience be with book nerds--and both from Jewish/Christian mixed backgrounds--since it means he's up on his Bible allegories. Just. Going to ignore the fact that it took me twenty years to realize Jara Hamee is basically Moses. Listen, for a religious person, I've always been kind of bad at religion, okay.


	4. Family

_**Steph** _

You don't get a whole lot of description of what it's like for a host in the long-term, so here:

Have you ever tried painting a picture, but had the colors run and drip down the canvas? There's a clear and obvious point of delineation--here, you see the blue, there the red, and then in the middle, the mess where the colors drip and bleed together. A mistake, the unintended consequence of poor planning, of gravity taking advantage of still too wet paint.

As the months wore on, and our routine shaped and formed into what it would be for the remainder, it felt sometimes like that gap of bleeding blues and reds was widening. The scale was always out of balance, of course--my mind was an open book to Priton, while I mostly saw what he wanted me to see, or at the very least, what he didn't care about me seeing. I didn't have that luxury, though because Priton liked conversation, he'd sometimes pretend like he couldn't hear me unless I said something directly to him. Unless he was angry-- _really_ angry, not mildly annoyed like he usually was when we fought--and we did fight. Quite a lot, even when we got along--which was always more surprising than frightening. You can forget, sometimes, that there's a person under a facade. That someone like that can ever care about anything.

I asked Priton once about this feeling, of this bleeding together. It feels sometimes like you're drowning, like you're losing your sense of time and space outside of the little bubble holding just the two of you. Most of the time--when I was in control, when we were with the others or on a mission, when we ran into Erek around town--"I'm not a messenger pigeon, go tell them yourself" was the last thing he'd said when Erek tried to tell us about the Leerans-- _most_ of the time I felt grounded. In the moment. And then other times, other times it was like being between universes again, floating in nothing, with only Priton to tether me. Was it like this for other hosts? Was this normal? Was I going to eventually lose myself completely, or would it be over before that was a real danger? Or would Priton leave and I'd be tetherless forever.

<You're not really in any danger of that,> Priton told me. He paused. <But yes. That is a thing. It does happen to people.>

<But-->

<It's normal. It's not  _good,_ I guess, but you'll live, I promise. It's not as bad as it feels. >

<But how can you-->

<I know. Trust me on this,  _I know. >_

Our "bleeding together" may have been largely one-sided, but sometimes, it went the other way.

On days when we didn't have anywhere to be--days "between books," as we called them--we'd stay at the library later. There wasn't much for us to do if we left, and it was easier to avoid Cassie's dad that way. But then, sometimes, we'd head out earlier. I don't remember what the reason was the first time it happened--I think maybe Jake had called a meeting for after school--only that we found ourselves on the bus one afternoon in early fall, heading back to Cassie's farm.

The bus wasn't very full that particular afternoon, and we were sat by the window, Priton staring idly out. The mundane scenes of suburbia flashed by us. And then, as we turned onto a new street, Priton straightened up, and suddenly my face was pressed so close to the glass that I could almost feel its coldness, even through the Priton-induced sensory fog. My lungs seized for a moment as Priton inhaled, then held it, as if afraid to let our breath distort the view. I saw the sign at the entrance to the park district. Caught a glimpse of a playground farther in. 

<Priton?>

Then, as the bus continued past, a glimpse of the soccer fields. Focused as my eyes were on it, I could make out young kids--elementary school aged, I guess--running drills, taking practice shots at a goal.

<P?>

I felt the answering twitch--Priton had a weird, inexplicable aversion to nicknames. I'm not sure he even knew why it bothered him, to be honest, except in that the more it bothered him, the more I enjoyed using it--but he didn't say anything. By then, though, we'd reached the park district's limit, and were continuing on our journey. Priton exhaled at last, leaning back against the seat, and wouldn't respond when I asked him what that had all been about.

Eventually, though, we caught a glimpse of what he was looking for. On another such bus ride, when Priton again pressed us up against the window for the best view, my eyes zeroed in on one child in particular. She didn't look too exceptional to me. I wouldn't have paid her any more mind than the rest. Dark hair. Lanky. A little taller than the others around her, but not exceptionally so. And then we were too far away again.

<Priton? Who is that?>

<Amy.>

That was all he said, at least at the time, but I could feel it. That bone-deep longing. That sadness, as we sagged back into our seat. Relief, too, just a little to take the edge off the rest.

I didn't know yet that Amy was Ben's stepdaughter--we didn't, at the very beginning, talk about Priton's  _before--_ but this feeling I understood. This feeling that made a person search for people from bus windows, or to tear apart sections of the library for a single coded acknowledgement, or to avoid whole swaths of the library altogether, or to spend precious computer time typing names into a search bar. This, this was familiar.

Homesickness, I guess, is universal.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing about writing a story like Going Back, which has gone through a few dozen revisions, and the thing about writing the same characters across different stories, is that they tend to... well, bleed into each other. Ben and Priton's relationship in [Brain Trust](https://archiveofourown.org/series/732855) is largely influenced by their relationship in Going Back. This latest revision of Going Back, in turn, is heavily influenced by Brain Trust. In this instance, with regards to the Yeerk/host relationship. To be honest, at this point, Going Back is probably more heavily influenced by the fandom at large--fanfiction, fan theories, etc.--than it is by the series itself.
> 
> That said, GB!Steph was the first to call Priton "P" and honestly, I think I added it to Brain Trust because it just got too weird for me to leave it out.


	5. Oatmeal

_**Priton** _

"I think this is probably going to be breakfast, lunch and dinner for a while," Cassie said, apologetic but smiling as she handed up the bowl to me.

"That's okay. Thanks, Cass." I set the bowl down next to me, hoping she wouldn't stick around. The odds, at least for tonight, were in my favor, I guess, because Cassie was only there for a moment longer before saying she was expected back inside. There was some nature documentary on TV that she was watching with her parents. 

When she was gone, I looked down at my "dinner," and it was all I could do not to laugh, albeit bitterly. Dodging Tobias on his pool patrols, I could do. Fool six rightfully paranoid child soldiers, that was easy. But this, this was where it all fell apart. How the hell was I supposed to get around  _this_ when, as Cassie said, it was going to be a while before we slogged through it all? 

Christ. Oat-freaking-meal, indeed.

<Does it matter how much of it you eat?> Steph wondered. As if timed, there was an answering rumble from our stomach. We  _were_ hungry, after all. It wasn't that easy being a fugitive from another universe and a... well, I guess I was just the regular kind. It was only that no one knew my crimes yet. The key mostly was not thinking about it. And spending a lot of time in a place that frowned upon snacking, like a library.

<I don't know,> I said, honestly.

<Maybe it's like alcohol. A little's fine, but if you drink too much in one go...>

<Little more risky than alcohol,> I pointed out. <Too much of that and you'll be puking your brains out the next day. Too much of this and I'll be fit only for the loony bin.>

Sometimes I wondered about people who used drugs. Not just humans, because they weren't the only ones in galaxy who had their vices of varying degrees of danger. Myself, I'd only ever tried alcohol through a host. Ben hadn't liked drinking much--it gave him headaches, made his thinking uncomfortably fuzzy--but a little was pleasant enough that I could see the appeal enough. Pleasant highs that didn't cause other problems? Fine. Harmless. Then there was the stuff that royally screwed you up. I had a hard time understanding how that started--addiction has to have a start, after all. I assumed there was a reason. There had to be, there always was.

Maybe this was a sort of answer to my question, I don't know. But I could understand the attraction of  _this._ Simple enough method. I had the memory of the taste of oatmeal, even if it wasn't mine. It wasn't the best Earth had to offer, but at least it was easy to eat. Good with brown sugar. And the aftermath? The aftermath was freedom. Freedom from the pool, freedom from the fear and threat of starvation. 

But, Jesus Christ, the price of that high.

I quite liked being alive. I would have liked to stay that way for a good, long while. But you had to draw the line somewhere. So far, of what I'd been faced with, it appeared that I drew the line at cannibalism and porridge. I was a lot of things, but at least I could say I was neither a murderer nor a lunatic. 

God, I hoped I could still say those things when this was all over.

<What do you want to do?> Steph asked. She, unsurprisingly, was no more enthusiastic about the probable outcome of this. On a good day, we were almost friends. Healthy friendships, I'd been told, didn't involve forced confinement with each other. Obviously, ours was already not a healthy friendship. Probably best not to make that worse.

<We could feed it to the animals,> I suggested. I glanced over the side of the hayloft, at the mostly full cages below. Could any of them eat oatmeal? I had no idea. Oats didn't naturally occur in mush form, as far as I was aware. Then, <Hey, horses eat oats, right?>

<I think?> That was enough encouragement for me. As I scooped up the offending bowl, Steph said, <Oh God, you're not actually going to feed that to the horse, are you?>

<It'll be fine,> I said, carefully balancing the bowl and spoon in one hand as I pulled myself over to the ladder to climb down. 

<You don't know that everything in that is okay for it to eat!>

<Like what? The oats? The water? The... maple?> Maple syrup? Crushed up maple leaf? Honestly, the name was kind of vague, now that I thought about it.

Steph groaned. <Okay. But I swear if, you poison Cassie's horse...> She didn't finish that sentence. There wasn't a threat that made sense.

<Duly noted,> I said anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I checked with my friend, who is knowledgeable in horse-related things--more knowledgeable than Google, which was utterly useless to me when I was looking this up--it is safe for horses to eat oatmeal. I made sure to specify that it was maple-or-ginger flavored, just in case. 
> 
> If this took place in 2018, Priton would probably say something like "weed makes sense, but who thinks bath salts sound like a good idea??"


	6. Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> File this under: Will Make Sense Later.

**_Priton_ **

Whenever anyone mentions the Yeerk Pool, the first thing they talk about are the screams.

You can't really get around them. You can't hide from them, unless you're a free Yeerk in the pool itself. But if you've got ears that can hear, you can't escape it. Even in closed off areas--the offices, the storage, the eating area for Christ's sake--there's still that distant sound, that uncomfortable rumble. That occasional shriek that breaks through the rest and makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck--if you have hair, anyway.

I know what humans are thinking when they experience this. How can such evil exist? How can we Yeerks see screaming, helpless, desperate prisoners and not feel any remorse? Don't we realize what we're doing? Don't we care?

The answer is, it depends on who you ask. I guarantee that you'll never find any sympathy from those guarding the cages, or the ones dragging freed hosts to and from the pool. Some are malicious, sure. Some are desensitized. Some see it like an unsavory job that needs to be done. Does a butcher cry over every animal he slaughters? Probably not. He wouldn't last long in his job if he did, I imagine.

Is that a fair comparison? I don't know. I really, truly don't know. The thing is, even if you  _do_ care, it doesn't do anyone any good. It's like standing in the middle of a roaring crowd and whispering " _shhh_." Except in this case, if the wrong person hears you, you could end up dead. Humans are so used to the importance of the individual that I think they forget that for Yeerks, we're all expendable. Maybe the Visser Ones of us get to make a few dozen mistakes before it finally catches up to them, but we're not all guarded by politics.

In fairness, I guess, it's equally as hard for Yeerks to fully grasp the concept of the individual. Hosts are hosts. The more there are available, the less special each single one is. 

"But Priton," you say, "you can't really believe that. Look at all _you've_ done." You're right. But I'm also a tender-hearted idiot. Not exactly the norm. I think xenophobia's probably a pretty common thing in the universe, bad as that sounds. Think of all the humans who balk at the idea of life existing elsewhere in the universe just because it would make humanity less "special." Think of the almighty Andalites, who taught Yeerks all we really needed to know about the fine art of barging into other people's planets uninvited and acting like we owned the place--and then got mad at us for doing the same thing, just with less subtlety.

And anyway, just because I didn't believe it meant that I had a hard time walking past all those screaming involuntaries. Just because I didn't enjoy the suffering of others didn't mean I was going to put my neck on the line by criticizing their treatment. I'm a foot soldier, not a general, and not an activist, no matter what side I'm fighting on. And I had more pressing matters to worry about, anyway. Like staying undetected, which wasn't easy, and getting harder by the day. Like finding ways to feed my host that didn't compromise my own well-being. Fuck, we were so close. The end of the line was in sight--or at least, the spot where I was getting off. I'd have what I wanted, and Steph would have what she wanted. I could have freedom from the pool. Steph could have the freedom to do whatever she wanted--eat all the oatmeal, read all the history books. She could go live with the Chee and sleep on an actual bed if she wanted to. She could spend all her days hanging out with dogs instead of staving off boredom in the library, if that's what she wanted to do. That last one didn't sound that great to _me_ , but at least it wasn't soul-crushingly depressing.

The end, it was turning out, was going to be the hardest part. There was the oatmeal fiasco--and realizing, too late, that I could have feigned an allergy, at the very least, though even that might have been risky. And then the Leerans--I had a plan for that one, at least--and the next sario rip after that. Then Aftran. Then, somehow, David. I didn't know what I was going to do about David.

There were a lot of times when it could all fall apart. But the catalyst came earlier than I thought it would. And when it finally came, it wasn't oatmeal, and it wasn't mind-reading frog-aliens. No, it was a lot simpler than that.

I wonder sometimes about coincidences. Like how convenient it was that it was Erek behind us on the drop off pier that first time. You'd almost think someone was fucking with me in particular. And who knows. Maybe they were. Or maybe it was just that this town was only so big, you know? Sometimes, you just run into the same people regularly, even if you're not trying.

I don't know. But then again, maybe it's just karma again.  Spend enough time turning a blind eye to people when you know you shouldn't, and maybe eventually it comes back to bite you in the ass. You can only look past so many terrified children on the infestation pier without qualifying as some kind of monster. And we all know what happens to the monsters in human stories.


	7. Future Sight

_**Priton** _

Before there could be reckoning, though, two things happened--one infinitely more important than the other. The first, less important thing, was this:

One Saturday morning, we took the bus not to the library but instead into the more residential part of town. I thought of flying--we weren't staying long--but it's always tricky business with that sort of thing, and anyway, this whole little field trip was about  _not getting caught_. Unnecessary risks were a bad idea at the best of times.

Tom answered the front door when I rang the bell. When I asked if Jake was home, he let me in, waving up the stairs before yelling, "Jake! You've got a friend here!" and then leaving me to it, apparently totally uninterested beyond that.

Which was probably good, because it meant he didn't notice how very uncomfortable being in his presence suddenly made me.

<Do you know him?> Steph wondered as I turned and headed up the stairs.

<Not personally, no.> Really, hardly at all. I had seen Tom before--God, I did not miss Sharing meetings--but I didn't know his Yeerk's name. I'd only known Temrash because Steph did. But that said, if you were the sort of person who needed to keep their head down, you paid attention to who seemed important in your immediate vicinity. Even if just to avoid them at all costs. That, and as I might have mentioned, it's hard being around people you know are doomed.

When I reached the top of the stairs, I paused, unsure of how to proceed. It's always the totally mundane things that Steph doesn't know, and they're always the ones that are inordinately surprising when they appear. Like not knowing where someone's bedroom was. Totally normal for a house you've never been to. Totally weird for someone who seems omniscient sometimes. 

I was saved from the existential crisis when a door opened a bedraggled Jake stuck his head out. Our arrival had woken him up, because he blinked in that confused, tired way before saying, "Oh. Hey. Uh, come in?"

Soon, I stood just inside the--now closed again--door, observing, with some amusement, that Jake's room was somehow more of a mess than I'd expected it to be. Sometimes humans are amusing, you know? A whole world of possibilities, a whole host of senses to experience it all with, it makes perfect sense that they'd want to collect as much as they can for themselves. And yet, half the time they never seem to know what to do with what they've got once they have it. Spoiled for options. Never is that so obvious, I think, than in a teenager's bedroom.

I cleared my throat. "I'm just stopping by for a minute." Jake looked like he was ready to fall back onto his bed, to be honest. I was pretty sure it had been months since I'd seen the kid look anything besides exhausted. I'd have felt bad for him, except at least he got to sleep in a bed. And this wasn't even the worst of it. "I just wanted to let you know that... next mission I'm sitting it out." 

Jake blinked at me, surprised, probably. I don't think anyone had ever done that before. At least not on purpose. "I mean. Okay. I'm not going to make you, I guess. But... wanna tell me why?"

I smiled a smile that was half-way a grimace. "I'd love to," I lied. "But I can't. It's just..." I rocked back on my heels, frowning. There weren't a lot of things I could say specifically. We still weren't entirely sure how it all worked. There had to be triggers for when things stopped being foreknowledge--or, as Steph liked to call them, "spoilers"--and just started being  _knowledge._ At any rate, somewhere out there was a guy named Hewlett Aldershot the Third, and the universe--or just Iniss Two-Two-Six--was waiting to him with a mini-van, but I couldn't say any of that. And I certainly couldn't say anything Leera, or morphing Leerans, or how very important it was that I not be there for any of that. So, instead, I said, "The circumstances of the next one are just... going to be very risky for someone like me." That sounded like shit, too. Christ. "Look, what I'm trying to say is, if I come along, there's a very good chance we'll lose the upper hand of having someone who knows basically everything."

I'm not sure if that actually made sense to Jake, to be honest, or if he was still only half-awake and so more willing to accept my nonsense. Either way, he shrugged, and said, "Okay. It's your call." He smiled, a little uneasily. "Should I be worried."

Yes. Always. Never stop worrying. When you think you've got it all figured out is when you'll fuck up. "No. No more than usual,anyway." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's Part 3 sorted. I imagine this would both be easier and way, way harder to do if I wasn't writing the series in pieces. Like, on the one hand--a full rewrite would give me so much time to develop relationships and plots and sub-plots. On the other hand--we only have so many years before the sun becomes a red giant and swallows up the Earth. We'd be cutting it really close. 
> 
> Anyway. Stay tuned next time for when we stop setting up and shit gets rolling. _Now the fun begins._


End file.
